![]() ![]() Teddy Bear Bees – Use buzz pollination.Blue Banded Bees – Use buzz pollination.Green Carpenter Bees – Use buzz pollination. ![]() In Western Australia (9 groupings / 3 are buzz pollinators) Bees capable of buzz-pollinating clamp their legs onto the anther of the flower and contract their flight muscles so vigorously that the pollen is released.Īustralia has 1,500 species of native bees. The honey bee, Apis mellifera, cannot buzz-pollinate. Blue Banded Bees have large bulging eyes with multiple lenses, and a long ‘tongue’ that enables them to extract nectar from trumpet shaped flowers.They can hover and perform ‘buzz pollination’ on plants such as Dianella revoluta. The males have five complete bands and females have four. They roost for the night clinging to plant stems, fighting for the top spot! (see my photos of blue banded males, settling down for the night on knotted club rush ( Ficinia nodosa). Cells at the end contain an egg and food (pollen and nectar) for the larvae when it emerges. They develop into adults and emerge when the warm weather returns.Īfter mating, female blue banded bees build a nest hole in soft sandstone or clay. Immature bees remain sealed in their cells inside the nests during the winter. Life cycleĪdult blue banded bees fly only in warm months of the year (October to April) and die before the winter. These are ‘solitary’ bees but females may build nests together in the same place. The beautiful Blue Banded Bee has a furry golden thorax and iridescent blue or white stripes on a glossy black abdomen. Blue Banded Bees (25 species in Australia) ![]()
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